Google Docs for Podio: Bringing your Documents to Life

Jon is a Podio co-founder with a love for building products that empower people to organize work and communicate in an agile manner.

Often projects revolve around documents, but not just documents on your desktop. A lot of companies on Podio also use Google Docs to create online spreadsheets, presentations, and documents that can be accessed anywhere, shared, and even edited by the entire team… at the same time.

It’s no surprise then that combining Google Docs with projects and workflows in Podio has been a popular request. That’s why today we are releasing Google Docs for Podio – to give you an even better experience of working the way you want, around all types of documents. We’re so excited about this and we hope you will love it too.

Google Docs in Podio AppsIn Podio anyone can build an app to suit their needs. So, say you have an app for managing project deliverables, and one of your deliverables is a product presentation that you’re working on in Google Docs; now you can simply attach it to the app item in Podio, set a deadline, choose a status to indicate if it’s a draft or final, and use comments for in-context and structured discussions around the deliverable.

Google Docs and Podio TasksIf you need a review for a doc you’re working on, simply create a task, assign it to a co-worker and attach the Google Doc. They’ll then get access to the doc to review it and can give you feedback with comments on the task.

Google Docs in statuses and messagesJust want to share a Google Doc with your co-workers? Write a status message in a workspace and attach the Google Doc. You can also share Google Docs privately by attaching them to messages you send on Podio.

Get started in 30 secondsIf you’re not already using Podio – sign-up here – it’s free.

Attaching Google Docs works in the same way as uploading any file from your computer to Podio. Click the paperclip, or ‘Add files’ icon anywhere you see it, select Google Docs, and connect your Podio account to your Google account (you only have to connect your account this first time), then you’re ready to pick the docs and files you want to share in Podio.

Google Docs for Podio works with any Google account; both Gmail and Google Apps. If you create a private Google Doc and then share it with someone on Podio, a secret link is generated for them to access the document.

Need a hand? Check out our getting started video below.

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Excellent! This is great to hear. To make it even better though, please integrate Google Spreadsheets directly into the interface! It would be amazing if they could be viewed and edited without having to open click on an item and open it in a new window. Cheers!

Anonymous

Nice, smooth and apparently seamless integration. I got the feeling that this was pretty much top of your ‘requested feature’ list, sooo, now that all of your developers have got sod all to do, how about putting real-time chat (including group chat) at the top of the list?

If you could have a chat module, ideally Jabber-based in order to be able to use existing setups, or an in-house intra-organisation setup would do failing that, then, well, I guess I’d never need to go outside the Podio space again.

Compliments on an already essential tool, and we’ve barely been using it for a week now!

http://twitter.com/meghan_krane Meghan Krane

Thank you! This is exactly what I have been hoping for. Great work :)

Todd Smith

Perfect! how do I implement it?

http://twitter.com/cujino Fabio Cujino

cool. Like the integration, and it looks as is you (Google and Podio) agreed to put similar CSS to the pages :)

It would be cool to be able to package apps to the app store with integrated elements from the services you are adding to Podio.

http://twitter.com/zesteam Zesteam Ltd.

Great Podio, Exellent choice!

Michelle Clapham

I’m loving the idea behind this, but for some reason when I attach a gdoc to a status in a workspace, it will only allow my colleagues to view, and not edit it. We’ve tried it with public docs, or ones set to ‘anyone with a link’, but the issue is the same. We’ve also tried it with them both logged in and logged out of their google accounts.

Is this a glitch, or are we missing something really obvious? (I have a sinking feeling it’s probably the latter…)

Steen Groðe

Eh and something where you actually can write and draw math.

http://www.theownerbuildernetwork.com.au David Wilks

Mat,

I’m with you! When I decided to run with Podio that is the only thing that caused me grief. I love the way it’s integrated with ToDoist but Podio won on every other count. The messaging is fast enough that it allows good communication but I still find I rely (too) heavily on Skype. Being a paper trail fiend, that creates serious issues!

Guys – add chat and Podio will be the next best thing to sex!

Shawn Ellis

This is good news. Any plans to incorporate “mail merge” functionality into thie Google Docs/Podio integration? For me, it would be great if I could merge data from certain fields into some standard document templates I use in my business. I know of at least one other Google Apps-based CRM/project management solution that offers this, so I know it’s possible. Would this be beneficial to anyone else here?

Shawn Ellis

This is good news. Any plans to incorporate “mail merge” functionality into thie Google Docs/Podio integration? For me, it would be great if I could merge data from certain fields into some standard document templates I use in my business. I know of at least one other Google Apps-based CRM/project management solution that offers this, so I know it’s possible. Would this be beneficial to anyone else here?

http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

If you already have a Gmail or Google Apps account, try attaching a file to a status message then pick Google Docs from the menu and connect your Google account to Podio, then you will be able to pull in your docs from there.

When you attach a Google Doc in Podio, we update the doc and set the permission to “Anyone with the link can view”. We don’t feel comfortable setting the access level any higher automatically, so to grant edit access you will have to do this manually in Google Docs, using the share button in the top right.

We are considering making it an option when attaching the Google Doc to specify the access right as a convenience, but will still default to view.

Michelle Clapham

Hi Christian,

Thanks for replying! So, as an example, if I wanted to share a document with the 20 people in our organisation, I’d also need to go to the doc and specify each individual person within the share box as able to edit?

That would be really helpful if you could look into being able to set access rights when attaching the Google Doc, as otherwise it would actually be one step easier to just share it with everyone straight from Google Docs rather than attaching it in Podio!

All you need to do is go to the document in Google and click “Share” in the top right corner. Next to the line that says “Anyone who has the link can view”, click change. Then under “Access” you can select “Edit”. This upgrades the access for everyone to “edit” (who has the link through Podio).

Michelle Clapham

Fantastic! I’ll give that a go, thank you so much for your help!

Dan Laush

Thank you so much for this! It’s definitely been at the top of my wish-I-had list.

One question though: If I have a document that’s already set to “anyone with the link can edit”, does sharing through Podio downgrade access to “anyone with the link can view”?